Sitcoms

In E4's new US import, Saturday Night Live alumnus Andy Samberg stars as Detective Jake Peralta, a police officer who doesn't take his job as seriously as he should, yet somehow manages to get results. As his squad leader Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews from Everybody Hates Chris) put it: "The only puzzle he hasn't solved is how to grow up."

To British television viewers, David Kelly was the stereotypical Irishman, guaranteed perpetuity through his appearance as O'Reilly, the inept contractor hired by Basil in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Builders". After botching a job inside the hotel, he is seen taking issue with Basil's disgruntled wife. "I like a woman with spirit," he unwisely says, before Sybil batters him with an umbrella. "I've been 52 to 53 years on stage and yet Fawlty Towers, those full nine minutes, make me recognised anywhere in the world," he once said.

What pops into your head when you think of sitcoms? Middle-class households filled with Ikea furniture? Acne-dappled teenagers slumped on sofas delivering withering put-downs to their parents? Neighbours with personality disorders who don't knock before coming into the house? Scripts so rotten that their terrible stench lingers in the memory for years to come?